Rate My Professor Cathy Fernandes

Professor Cathy Fernandes is Professor of Preclinical Models of Neurodevelopmental Disorders in the Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London. She earned her PhD from the University of London in 1996 on factors influencing the development of diazepam dependence in the rat, a BSc in Pharmacology with Toxicology from King’s College London in 1992, a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice from King’s College London in 2011, and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. A behavioural geneticist and pharmacologist with over 30 years’ experience in rodent behaviour, she trained as a psychopharmacologist at Guy’s Hospital, studying models of anxiety, exploratory activity, cognition, and drug dependence mechanisms. Her career trajectory includes research at Royal Free & University College Medical School in 2000 on molecular mechanisms of antidepressant action, joining the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience in 2001 for functional genomics of mouse behaviour, a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship in 2006 at the Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience in Utrecht on gene-environment interactions in depression models, and a Research Councils UK Fellowship in 2007 in the Department of Psychosis Studies investigating adolescent cannabis use as a schizophrenia risk factor. She rejoined the SGDP Centre as a lecturer, advancing to Senior Lecturer in 2014, Reader in 2018, and Professor in 2021. She heads the Preclinical Models of Neurodevelopmental Disorders group, is a founding member of the MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, and has developed microarrays for gene expression and a mouse behavioural testing unit.